That very night, Jun Beiyue regained consciousness. Seeing that he was back at camp, he didn’t say a word—just threw off the covers and made to get out of bed!

But the moment his feet touched the ground, his entire body suddenly turned ice-cold, as though he’d been plunged straight into a world of ice and snow!

How could this be?

He instinctively tried to channel his energy for warmth, only to discover that he couldn’t summon even the faintest trace of internal energy!

He cultivated the unique Gu Family internal energy technique—stripping him of it should never have been so easy. And yet now… he had none at all, not a single layer of it left!

This… wasn’t this essentially the same as having his martial arts completely destroyed?

His entire fighting ability was built entirely on his internal energy, after all!

“Poison…”

Jun Beiyue’s expression changed drastically. Just then, White Tiger General and Jun Beichen entered, and seeing him awake, both were overjoyed!

“Fourth brother, you…” Jun Beichen didn’t even know what to say!

Jun Beiyue had always been a careful, cautious man—catching him off guard like this couldn’t have been easy. It wasn’t that Chu Tiange’s trap had been so masterful; it was that Jun Beiyue had let his own guard down, too careless with himself.

“Your Highness, all the army physicians have examined you. All they know is that it’s some special kind of poison—they can’t identify exactly what it is!” White Tiger General reported honestly.

“The cold—will it continue?” Jun Beiyue asked, his voice heavy. From the moment he’d woken up until now, even huddled beneath the blankets, he still felt cold—cold enough that his limbs were gradually growing weak and useless.

In this condition, there was no way he could travel anywhere.

“Yes. This poison forms a chill within the body, and that cold energy invades every major meridian point, sealing them off—and in sealing them off, it seals away your internal energy as well!” White Tiger General repeated what the army physicians had told him!

Listening to this, Jun Beiyue’s handsome face grew colder and colder.

He knew his own body better than anyone. He accepted that this was his own fault—but he couldn’t afford to simply wait it out.

Abruptly, he threw off the covers again, planted a foot on the ground, grabbed his outer robe to wrap around himself, and made to leave. “I have to go there myself.”

He truly did have to go himself. In this entire world, Situ Haonan would only listen to two people—one was the Lord of Nangong City, and the other was him.

He didn’t know exactly why Ziqing had felt she had to kill the Lord of Nangong City, but he knew she must have had her reasons!

He also knew that, whatever those reasons were, Situ Haonan would never forgive her for it—which meant he had to go himself!

Whatever it took, he had to stop Situ Haonan, or at the very least, calm him down first!

He didn’t want to lose Ziqing, and he didn’t want to lose a good brother either!

“Your Highness! What exactly is this about, that it requires you to go in person? The Shadow Guard has already been sent—please, rest easy!”

“That’s right, fourth brother, you can’t go, and besides—” Jun Beichen said bluntly, “in your current condition, you can’t even make it out of this tent!”

Jun Beiyue said nothing, simply reaching out and throwing back the tent flap. A bone-piercing cold wind immediately swept in.

Under ordinary circumstances, no matter how cold the wind, Jun Beiyue could simply ignore it entirely!

But now was different from before!

He was poisoned. He was vulnerable to cold now.

Cold was the deadliest thing for him in this state—he couldn’t even stand steady, feeling the chill intensify, every ounce of cold like some frost-borne insect burrowing forcefully beneath his skin, drilling all the way down into his very bones!

There was no pain more bone-deep than this.

He stopped, unable to lower the tent flap himself, his entire face turning ashen.

White Tiger General, no longer caring about propriety, reached out and yanked the flap down himself, while Jun Beichen hurried to fetch a fur cloak and drape it over him.

“Fourth brother, calm down. There has to be a way! If you rush out like this recklessly, you’ll accomplish nothing at all!”

Jun Beichen spoke earnestly, urging him to reason. He could guess, roughly, that something had happened to Han Ziqing.

Otherwise, there truly was nothing in this world that could shake Jun Beiyue’s composure like this!

Jun Beichen wasn’t wrong—it was the plain, honest truth. Jun Beiyue glanced at him, and only then did he calm down somewhat.

He thought hard, brow furrowed tight, racking his brain—was there any way to get word to Ziqing faster than the Shadow Guard, in the shortest possible time?

The carrier pigeons and hawks he kept weren’t familiar with the western reaches of Xijing and couldn’t fly there directly. As for horses, crossing Xijing’s territory meant crossing desert land—without a guide, they’d inevitably get lost, and die of thirst besides!

Jun Beiyue turned the problem over and over in his mind, finally murmuring aloud, “Is there any way to get a sealed letter into Ziqing’s hands in the shortest possible time?”

At these words, both Jun Beichen and White Tiger General looked puzzled.

“Aren’t our hawks fast enough?” Jun Beichen asked quickly.

Intelligence normally traveled by hawk to the Xijing royal court, and from there, members of the Xijing royal household would forward it on to Situ Haonan.

Truly confidential letters, of course, were carried by the Shadow Guard, which naturally took longer.

And this was precisely the one thing that absolutely could not be allowed to pass through the hands of the Xijing royal family!

Jun Beiyue shook his head. “Not fast enough. This is a sealed letter—it can’t pass through the Xijing royal family’s hands. It has to go straight to Ziqing.”

By this point, Jun Beiyue had truly calmed himself down. Even as he spoke, he waved a hand, signaling White Tiger General and Jun Beichen to leave.

He needed a moment alone, in silence. He was certain he could think of something—there had to be a way, there absolutely had to be!

White Tiger General and Jun Beichen exchanged a glance and had no choice but to obediently withdraw.

Jun Beichen returned to his own tent, mulling over the problem, while White Tiger General—a blunt, simple soldier who understood nothing but fighting and killing enemies—found this kind of brain-racking problem entirely beyond him.

He glanced up at the sky and only then remembered he still hadn’t brought Bai Mengmeng her food today!

Jun Beiyue had confined Bai Mengmeng, restricting only her personal freedom—he hadn’t strictly demanded that White Tiger General sever all ties with his adopted daughter.

White Tiger General, partly out of love for his daughter, and partly because age had softened his heart, made a point of personally bringing Bai Mengmeng her meals every few days.

Life confined within the army camp was never easy. To begin with, the three daily meals weren’t anything special, and White Tiger General had once doted on Bai Mengmeng as though she were his own flesh and blood—how could he bear to see her suffer like this?

That said, White Tiger General also kept his visits to Bai Mengmeng secret from Jun Beiyue, not daring to go every single day—a small gesture of respect toward Jun Beiyue, in its own way.

White Tiger General headed to the mess tent, had the cook prepare several dishes, and carried them out carefully. Once he was certain no one was around, he quietly made his way toward the prison camp.

Being a general wasn’t easy.

But being a subordinate, and a father—that was harder still.

White Tiger General thought to himself: though Mengmeng’s life was ruined for good now, it was still better than being dead. This was how things would have to be, at least this way father and daughter wouldn’t be separated.

The guards, seeing White Tiger General approach, all discreetly looked away, pretending to see nothing at all.

Inside the prison camp, everything looked much like an ordinary military tent, except that there were no shortage of guards, both visible and hidden, keeping watch all around. Aside from being relocated, Bai Mengmeng was not permitted to step one foot outside the camp.

There was no denying that this prison camp was something of a burden, an inconvenience, to the Tiger Army’s main camp.

Every time White Tiger General came here, he felt an indescribable pang of guilt—he knew that Prince Yao had only allowed this out of consideration for his own standing.

The moment Bai Mengmeng saw White Tiger General arrive, she ran over joyfully, sweet and considerate as ever. “Father, the army has so much to deal with—you don’t need to keep coming all the way here. I can take care of myself!”

Ever since being confined, Bai Mengmeng had remained consistently well-behaved, expressing her regret and admitting her wrongs to White Tiger General, who had in truth already forgiven her long ago.

As White Tiger General set out the food, he sighed helplessly. “There was nothing planned for tonight, but unfortunately, Prince Yao…”